Improvement in hoop-skirt joints



UNITED STATES S. J. SHERMAN, OF BROOKLYN, NEW YORK.

IMPROVEMENT IN HOOP-SKIRT JOINTS.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 49,447, dated August 15, 1865.

To all whom 'it may concer/rt.-

Be it known that I, S. J. SHERMAN, of Brooklyn, in the county of Kings and State of New York, have invented a certain new and useful Improvement in the Joints of Hoops for Ladies Skirts, the same being an improvement on the skirt described in the patent issued to S. A. Moody, dated May 10, 1864, since reissued; and I do hereby declare that the following is a full and exact description thereof.

The accompanying Vdrawings form a part of this specification.

Figure 1 is a perspective view, showing the operation of the joint when the skirt is in use 5 and Fig. 2 is a view of the joint with a portion of the hoop on each side thereof. The black outlines show the hoop in its plain or ordinary condition. The red outlines show the hoop more or less doubled or folded by the action of the hinge. Both views are side views. Fig. 3 is a View from above, or a plan view, showing the same parts. It is the near side of a skirt, corresponding to the left side of the lady as she sits above. The black lines therein are those showing the ordinary condition of the joint .when seen from above, whether the hoop is plane or folded. The red outlines show the only motion horizontally which the parts are capable of. The joint cannot project outward much beyond the general circular form of the hoop. The hoop may form an angle at each joint with its salient presented inward to ward the person of the wearer, but it cannot form an angle projecting outward. Fig. 4 shows the duplex ring (which is so prominent in the iigures before described) on a larger scale and detached entirely from the other parts. It may be made by cutting with suitable dies in apress from a sheet of hard brass or other suitable material and slightly raising the inner ring.

The purpose of the invention is to produce a skirt which will allow the hoops to bend or fold properly in the vertical direction without the liberty heretofore allowed to bend outward or form a projecting angle in the horizontal direction. It may bend so as to form a re-enterin g angle, but not so as to forma salient angle in the horizontal plane. i

To enable others skilled in the art to make and use my invention, Iwill proceed to describe its construction and operation'by the drawings,

and ofthe letters of reference marked thereon.

Similar letters of reference indicate like parts in all the figures.

A is the front part of a hoop, and A is a clasp pressed thereon. y

B is the rear part of a hoop, and B is a clasp pressed thereon.

The clasps A and Bl carry as part of themselves or otherwise the loops aand b, adapted to embrace and slip freely on the innermost part of the double ring, now to be described, and thus to form the iiexible joint of the hoop.

C and D are concentric rings firmly fixed in the position indica-ted relatively each to the other by the aid of the bars or connections E. These parts may be all in one piece, (as, by

preference, struck from a single sheet of suitable material, as represented in Fig. 4,) or may be made in separate pieces and soldered or otherwise joined together with suicientstrength. In case the parts are made and joined, as last suggested, they may be formed of round wire or material partly round and partly dat, or in many other forms, according as the skirt is very cheap and hastily made or expensive and elaborate.

The bars E prevent the bars a and b slipping past them, but allow all the flexibility which is ever required in practice in the vertical direction.

In the horizontal direction the joint may move inward out of the general sweep of the hoop in the same manner `and with the same freedom as the single ring in the Moody skirt, (which I have purchased a right to make and sell;) but it cannot move outward outside of the proper sweep of the hoop, because the contact of the rigidly connected outer ring D against the inner face of the parts-A and B or their connections forbids it and compels the part of the hoop containing the joint tolcon form strictly, or very nearly, to the "general sweep of the hoop as Viewed from above uning a guard, D, arranged substantiallyY as and der all circumstances. for the purposes herein specified.

I propose to use my improved joint1 with all In testimony whereof I have hereunto set varieties ofhoops and with all varieties of my hand in the presence ot' two subscribingVY skirts adapted thereto. witnesses.

Having now fully described my invention, S. J. SHERMAN. what I claim as my invention, and desire to se- Witnesses:

cure by Letters Patent, is as follows:

A skirt-hoop connected by a link, G, hav- D. W. STETsoN, K. W. STETsoN. 

